2.4 Million Dollar Fish First Day of Bisbee - but it's not in the tournament

591  LB BLUE MARLIN CAUGHT ABOARD LA BRISA

La Brisa catches a 2.4 million fish first day of the Bisbee Black & Blue ...but is not in the tournament. No qualifying fish were weighed  in on day one of the richest billfish tournament in the world. Our regular Pisces charters went about their business as usual. La Brisa had anglers from Cincinnati, Ohio on board and 37 year old Giles Patterson, a homebuilder by trade was hooked up to a 15 lb tuna that had bitten a cedar plug, when a blue marlin exploded from the depths and engulfed it. Giles muscled away for four and a half hours, bringing the fish to the boat nine times, before the fish dove and did not surface again. The crew realized that the fish had died and spent some time hand-lining it up.

CROWS MOBBED THE ANGLER TODAY

Back at the scale the fish was bigger than expected, as crowds mobbed the stunned angler who said " that was the most unbelievable fight of my life" as the scale registered 591 LBS. Pretty amazing seeing as none of the 109 boats entered in the tournament caught a qualifying fish today and we had a really nice fish yesterday too at 566 lbs - two fish, two days, both on Pisces 31 ft Bertrams possibly the finest sportfisher ever built.

LOOK AT THE WIDTH OF THAT TAIL

Huge Marlin Caught on Eve of Bisbee Black & Blue

Huge fish caught on the eve of the 33rd edition of the Bisbee Black & Blue.  We were down at the dock this afternoon when we heard that Pisces 31 ft Bertram, Rebecca was approaching the dock with big fish. Just a couple of minutes later in motored Rebecca with a huge fish laying across the cockpit, it was so large that it's head had to be angled up to fit - basically the length of the fish was more than the width of the boat. Captain Jose Ramon told us he had been fishing about 21 miles out from Cabo with the same anglers that had been with him on the previous two days, when he saw something about a mile away, jump out of the water. At first he thought it was a manta ray, but they picked up lines and sped over to investigate.  The fish first hit a green & lime lure, then Jose Ramon, quickly rigged one of the tuna they had caught earlier in the day and dropped it back to the large fish, who inhaled it, giving them a solid hook up.  Thirty six year old George Hanson from Idaho Falls, was given the rod and he steadfastly fought the big fish on  80 lb test for an hour before the crew realized the fish had died - they then brought it up by hand lining it between them. At the surface they realized that the fish was tail wrapped and had drowned.  They put a tail rope around it and hoisted it into the boat and headed back to shore. Other anglers on board were Gary Barnes, Dave Rankin & Eugene Hanson.  George who works with his dad Eugene in their recycling business, had set the trip up for his dad & his friends and they were not disappointed -
with 35 tuna, 9 dorado, 1 striped marlin and of course the 566 lb blue marlin caught by George, during their three days charter with Pisces who added "this was a trip of a lifetime"

Bisbee Offshore Won by a Tuna & 33 LB Dorado?

Bisbee Offshore - won by a tuna? Incredible but true....ninety nine boats competed over Saturday & Sunday in the tournament known as the "little Bisbee", what is attractive about this two day event is you can get in it for as little as $1,500 and across the board is only $10,500 - not small, but a fraction of what it costs in the Black & Blue ($71,000). Many of the captains put up the money themselves to be able to fish this and get valuable pre-fish knowledge. This year however, there were no big blue marlin in sight. Four underweight fish were brought to the scale, but not one of them could reach the 300 lb minimum weight limit. The rules state that if no eligible billfish are caught the monies roll over to the gamefish categories. So it ended up that a 201 lb tuna and a 33 lb dorado won $110,000.00 each - maybe the biggest payday every for a small dorado. We spoke with the team that caught the large tuna, Donald Whitter, owner of Wahoo Loco and the boat Estrella del Norte, which is not your typical Cabo sportfisher. Donald built the boat himself, a 32 ft Carolina design using a cold mold made out of wood, then wrapping it with fiberglass. The boat has two 300 Yamaha outboards & can reach a speed of 40 knots. The tuna was caught by team member Gonzalo Castillo, a local guy out of La Playita. Donald and Estrella del Norte are no strangers to success, they took first place last year in the WON Tuna Tournament with a massive 372 lb fish. Asked about his strategy Donald said "Our intention was never to catch a marlin, we were going strictly for tuna, that is what we are good at. We figured that most of the boats would enter the gamefish category so there would be a big pay out. We fished five days (three in the Los Cabos Billfish before this event) to catch a fish of that size. We caught it at the inner Gordo on live bait, we had it to the boat, stuck the gaff in it, but it broke it & straightened the hook , then dove down about 100 feet we went to work again". After an hour and fifteen minutes they had it at the boat again, this time they used a flying gaff as well as a second gaff. Good thinking and good work, that secured them a $110,000.00 pay day. Bisbee Black & Blue starts tomorrow and the absence of the big fish is a little worrying, however, with a massive storm down below us, it may push fish this way.

Estrella del Norte is not your typical Cabo sportfisher.

Pancho The Sea Lion Nabs Prize Winning Tuna

Don't be fooled by the sweet face, Pancho is a professional fish snatcher.

 



 

 

Pancho has been a naughty boy! Don't let that sweet face fool you....Pancho snatched a tuna that was about to be weighed in as a prize winning fish during the Los Cabos Billfish Tournament. Team Ole Ole backed into the dock with a qualifyin...g tuna of around 35 lbs, they handed it to the dock worker, who grabbed it by the tail and swung around to put it in his fish cart. In one smooth movement, Pancho who had been stalking the boat, erupted from the water like a speeding bullet, snatched the tuna and disappeared. Definitely making team Ole Ole candidates for the hard luck award - we figured the tuna was worth close to $7,000.00 if it had made it to the scale.

This is not when he stole the tuna, this was another day, but gives an idea of the real size of  Pancho and other sea lions in the area.

 

PRIZE GIVING LOS CABOS BILLFISH TOURNAMENT

 

 

Prize monies for the Los Cabos Billfish Tournament
1st Extraction 625 lb blue marlin $295,425.00
2nd Expedition 516 lb blue marlin $27,000.00
1st in release Chupacabra $39,150.00
2nd in release Galati $5,400.00
3rd in release Cisco$3,600....00
Daily release Reel Quest $6,075.00
Tuna Day 1 & 2 39 lb & 65 lbs Reel Gold $20,081.00
Day 1 Wahoo Miss Behavin 26.5 lbs $6,693.00
Day 2 Wahoo El Suertudo 32.8 lbs $6,693.00
Day 3 Wahoo Minerva II 34.5 lbs $6,693.00



Oct 12th to 18th, 2013
Overall Catch Success Rate All Species Combined 95%
Numbers at a glance: Billfish 10%, Dorado 92% Tuna 2%, Wahoo 9%

 

 

BILLFISH: We had low numbers of billfish this week, which is unusual, but we are pretty certain this was caused by a late season tropical storm.  Just before the storm though we had some nice catches such as those aboard Pisces Fearless on October 12th, when the group from Intrepid Investment released three striped marlin & caught a wahoo & seven dorado. This same day Phil Musial from Houston released two striped marlin and caught three dorado aboard Pisces Adriana & Patrick and Jean Neville from Bradenton, Florida, also had a nice day aboard Pisces Tracy Ann with a striped marlin released and thirteen dorado to the boat. The port was closed on October 14th but we experienced pretty heavy rains the day before too, which messed the water up and cooled it down. So our great striped marlin and sailfish bite turned off, as the fish looked for cleaner water and we had to wait for the beautiful blue water they like, to return. This started to happen towards the end of this report, but otherwise we might as well call this the dorado report. That said this week saw the first of the big fishing tournaments the Los Cabos Billfish Tournament. The tournament started on Oct 16th and forty boats participated – again due to the weather in previous days only two qualifying fish were weighed in, both on day one of the event. Team Extraction pulled in with a sizeable blue marlin that tipped the scale at 625 lbs. putting them in first place which held true throughout the competition. Angler Tom Lansing from Phoenix was thrilled as was his captain Hiram Montano. Neither Tom nor Hiram are new to fishing success having a string of places in recent years in all the tournaments. Hiram’s brother, Bruce was a crewmember aboard Expedition who touched the dock an hour after the big fish was weighed. Angler Glenn Richardson from Abbeville Louisiana had fought his large blue for three hours and would end up taking second place overall with his 516 lb. fish. Chupacabra took the top release honors and there were also categories for wahoo, dorado and tuna. All places are not official until tonight when the awards banquet takes place. As we write this the second tournament of the fall season is underway, the Bisbee Offshore where around 90 boats are competing in this two day event, before the main event set to start on October 23rd. The tournament taking place right now used to be called the “little Bisbee”; we hardly think it warrants this name anymore. Going back to regular fishing, as mentioned above the striped marlin began to show up as the weather got back to normal. Only ten percent of charters caught marlin this week and we had a single sailfish aboard Yahoo. Total marlin count was sixteen stripers. Our overall catch success rate for all species was ninety five percent, the only boats that did not catch anything, were those specifically targeting big blue marlin.

OTHER SPECIES: The dorado fishing was in complete contrast to that of marlin, but then again, they like the debris that washes into the sea during and after storms and have a penchant for hanging out under stuff floating making them easy pickings for pretty much every boat. The weights on this species were usually in the 12 to 30 lb. class with the standard catch around nine fish per day, though some caught as many as twenty one. The Pacific was the top spot to find dorado with a combination of lures and bait working.  Ninety two percent of our boats caught dorado, with many of the smaller fish released. Our total dorado count was 694 fish. Tuna catches were slow this week with just a couple of boats finding a few smaller fish, as usual C Rod was the top tuna boat with twelve caught in one day. Wahoo catches were better than those of tuna with nine percent of boats catching fish in the 30 to 50 lb. class. Wesley had some nice surf fishing trips where he was successful in catching roosterfish, needlefish & jack crevalle.
LOCATION: Pacific – lighthouse to Golden Gate.
WEATHER: Rain for two days, seas bumpy for a couple of days afterwards, right now so gorgeous it takes your breath away. Blue, calm seas, clear skies.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 83 F
BEST LURES: green, live caballito, white/blue, petrolero, ballyhoo

A NEW BEAUTY IS IN TOWN

Everybody wants to know who our new neighbor is....this beauty just pulled into the marina - 237 FT Alston Marine "Kogo" is named after the wife of the French/Saudi businessman Mansour Ojjeh, who purchased the steel hulled vessel in 2006. ...Mansour is one of the founders of the McLaren Formula 1 racing team. Tabloids have recently linked his daughter romantically with British driver Lewis Hamilton - we have a birds eye view from our office window so will let you know if we see any celebs sneaking about - but then again most people will be over at the scales waiting for big fish to come in.

 

 

LCBT No Billfish Day Two, but they are out there

Seeing as no billfish were weighed in on day two of the LCBF tournament we thought we would remind the anglers of what they are supposed to be catching - this great shot of an approx. 400 lb blue marlin was sent in by Captain Brent Rose of a fish released on Sunday by angler Matt Besley aboard Jeta.

Nice Fish in Tournament

We were holding our breath, waiting for what we knew was going to be a nice fish, to come to the scale late yesterday afternoon - it looked really big and perhaps a prize winner for Abbeville, Louisiana, angler Glenn Richardson. Once hoisted up the electronic scale told it's own story and registered it at 516 lbs - not big enough to bump Extraction's 625 lb'er from it's first place spot, but may hang in there to put them in the prize money. One more day of fishing left in this event and who knows what will show up later today - stay tuned.

BIG BLUE MARLIN CAUGHT FIRST DAY OF TOURNAMENT

 

 

Big Fish Caught First Day of Tournament: The Los Cabos Billfish kicked off with the day one of three of fishing. Forty teams signed up and despite cooler weather, a BIG BLUE was brought in today by Team Extraction - THE 625 LB FISH - was la...nded by Tom Lansing from Phoenix, Arizona aboard his 53 ft vessel. Skipper Hiram Montana is an excellent fisherman and no stranger to success; he has led Tom Lansing to many prize winning fish, including a win of Bisbee East Cape in 2010 with a 510 lb black marlin, plus a 4th & 2nd place in 2009 & 2010 in the Black Blue where this team have won almost a $1,000,000. Will this fish be the winner of this tournament? Hard to say, but that's going to be a tough fish to beat. Of course when we spoke to Captain Hiram, he wasn't giving anything away, but did tell us he caught it on bait on the Cortez side. The fish took two hours to bring to the boat.